Departing Mexican consul has been a prominent presence

Nancy Flores

Wednesday

Jun 12, 2019 at 3:32 PMJun 13, 2019 at 2:09 PM

Less than a month after President Donald Trump’s inauguration, Mexico’s consul general in Austin, Carlos González Gutiérrez, received a note that he still keeps today. While having lunch at a local restaurant the waiter slipped him a note from some of the restaurant’s cooks asking if they could speak with him after his lunch.

González Gutiérrez looked at the kitchen and saw three Mexican women waving. He thought they might have questions about obtaining a passport. But he was taken aback by their concerns. Each was a homeowner who had built a life in the United States. When he met with them after his lunch, he remembers them asking, “Can President Trump confiscate our houses?”

“I’ll never forget that day,” González Gutiérrez said.

Over the past four years, González Gutiérrez, who leaves Austin this week to lead the Mexican consulate in San Diego, has become a prominent presence in the community. He’s a constant figure in Spanish-language media, ensuring that Mexicans living in Austin know him and feel comfortable reaching out to the consulate.

"He has a way of connecting with all sectors of the community," said Ricardo Ainslie, director of the University of Texas' Mexico Center. Ainslie was having lunch with the consul when he received the note and was moved by how much the women trusted him to share their circumstance.

When the consul spoke to the restaurant cooks, it was a week before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted raids in Austin and arrested 51 immigrants, including many with no criminal records. But already, the consul said, there was something in the air.

“It’s a testament to the fear, anxiety and climate that has been created in the last few years and the impact it’s had on people,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

González Gutiérrez’s departure is part of a new migrant protection strategy by the Mexican government, which includes the appointments of 15 consuls general in the United States. The new consuls general will, among other initiatives, help lead programs focused on expanding the network of lawyers and groups involved in defending the rights of Mexicans abroad. As a result of the shift, Pablo Marentes González, a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, will take his place this summer. Marentes González previously served as consul general in New York and San Francisco.

For González Gutiérrez, who has been a member of the Mexican Foreign Service since 1987 and became Mexico’s consul general in Austin in 2015, his tenure during the Trump administration in many ways has been unprecedented.

Consulates across the country saw a spike in demand, and in the summer of 2017 the Mexican government launched a $50 million program to expand services at its 50 U.S. consulates. In Austin, about $260,000 helped fund know-your-rights events, naturalization clinics, one-on-one immigration consultations and emergency preparedness sessions.

When the ICE raids occurred in early 2017, Austin turned to González Gutiérrez’s leadership. In Mayor Steve Adler’s State of the City address a year after the arrests, he shared how their relationship evolved over time from only seeing each other at festive occasions to working together in times of crisis.

“Times have changed, and so has our relationship,” Adler said in his speech. Adler shared that, at the time of the immigration raids, the city had “no reliable access to information except what we got from my friend, the consul general. At that moment, we found ourselves in common cause in service of this city — and all of its people.”

But it wasn’t the only challenge González Gutiérrez faced during his time here. During his Texas tenure, the consulate has been involved in issues ranging from protesting the denial of birth certificates to speaking out about a controversial “zero tolerance” traffic enforcement operation in Bastrop County, which resulted in the arrest of 24 people, including more than a dozen who were picked up by immigration authorities.

“The consulate still plays a key role in providing basic protection services to a population that unfortunately is almost invisible for the mass majority of Austin residents who live in a prosperous city that has grown economically year after year, in great part with the contributions of these workers,” González Gutiérrez said.

One of the lessons he has learned from his four years as consul general, he said, has been that Texas isn’t playing the role it can and should in U.S.-Mexico relations.

“Texas is Mexico’s No. 1 (trading) partner, and we have to raise awareness about that both in Mexico and the U.S.,” he said. Among his challenges upon arrival in Austin, he said, was to encourage, advocate and engage Texans to become more involved in the greater context of U.S.-Mexico relations. To him, that means more than just trade and going beyond NAFTA, but also connecting about areas such as health care, education and cultural events, he said.

“I’m confident that that’s the future of Texas and Mexico, but for that to happen (Texas) needs to be more aggressive and play a proactive role in U.S.-Mexico relationships that’s not exclusively limited to trade,” he said.

Under his leadership, the Austin’s Mexican consulate office moved from downtown to a spacious Southeast Austin building on East Ben White Boulevard. The building has become more of a community center with space for nonprofits to gather and galleries displaying exhibits such as its latest permanent photo exhibit “Mexicans and Mexican Americans in Austin.”

González Gutiérrez also launched Casa México, a three-day event aimed at squashing misconceptions about Mexico and spotlighting the country’s culture, entrepreneurship and innovation during South by Southwest.

But among his proudest achievements, he said, has been the creation of the MexAustin scholarship program, which provides first- or second-generation Mexican or Latino students money to attend college and involves numerous community partners.

“He’s going to be missed,” said Luis Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Greater Austin Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “Austin was fortunate to have him.”

More about Carlos González Gutiérrez:

• Has been a member of the Mexican Foreign Service since 1987.

• Became Mexico’s consul general in Austin in 2015.

• Became a leading advocate for a campaign to increase Mexican dual citizenship in the United States.